


1 8 1 3

by Vixx2pointOh



Series: A Picture Tells [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Adultery, Alternate Universe - Historical, Arranged Marriage, Cunnilingus, F/M, Fluff, Historical sensibilities, I have gone sawft, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Regency, Regency Romance, Sex, Smut, We hate Malcolm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-12 03:17:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20557337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vixx2pointOh/pseuds/Vixx2pointOh
Summary: Trapped in a loveless marriage, Felicity had resigned herself to a life of avoiding her husband and pretending to enjoy needlepoint.When a journey to accompany the dreadful man presented itself, she never considered she might meet a man worth falling in love with and risking it all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> September is my birthday month and on such an occasion I write what I please, lol. This year I have combined my love of abandoned buildings with my love of writing. I asked Twitter to vote on which building to incorporate first, and the result was a little cabin sitting out in the middle of a lake.
> 
> Here is the story to accompany it. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> It's in two parts, the second part will be posted tomorrow.
> 
> NOTE: While I have done my best to accurately reflect housing, status, clothes, transportation, etc of the era, I am NOT a historian and I wrote this in 4 days, so please excuse any errors, I hope they aren't glaring.

_ **thank you to ash, my oNe sHOt bish. ** _

**•|1813, England|•**

Felicity Megan Smoak was 18 years old the day she was married. She had met her husband only the one time before that chilly day in November, and that was the day he'd sneered at her as his eyes wandered up and down her youthful and petite body and declared quite blithely that “she would do.”

While her tempestuous nature might have had her momentarily livid at her mother and determined to refuse the vile man with threads of wiry black hair and a thin, unloving smile in the most inauspicious way possible; she couldn't resent a woman who was bound just as much as she.

Felicity's father had died a few years back leaving great debts to the landowner. Despite her mother’s every effort to appease him and pay off the debt by tending fields and cleaning his estate house, when Felicity came of an acceptable age Donna's work was no longer required and the only way she and her daughter would not be cast out to die in squalor was Felicity's hand in marriage.

Her mother had pleaded with the man, offering herself freely to do with as he pleased, but his mind was already set on Felicity and he would accept no less.

And so, the marriage was held in a small chapel with wooden pews and tiny white flowers decorating the aisle.

The wedding night was marked as the first time he'd hit her, but it had certainly not been the last.

He'd torn at her lacy nightgown and pushed her onto the bed, but unable to garner an erection they had never consummated the wedding and with the back of his hand he had blamed his impotence on her.

It was at that moment, six months ago, that Felicity had decided that she would not be broken by such a man, and every time he had put his hands on her from that moment she had stared him down, unwilling to cower.

Her husband had tried all manner of "cure", from drinking lilac tea to ingesting the ground testicles of pigs; that particular one had come at Felicity's suggestion to the dim-witted physician that her husband ordained as a brilliant man. There was absolutely no basis to the claim but for an entire week her husband ate evening meals of pigs' testicles, so much so that he, at the end of the week, was so violently ill that he spent the following week on bed rest.

On a few instances Felicity had seen to it herself, carefully slipping something into his nightly brandy that would see him supposedly falling down drunk and provide Felicity a reprieve from his unwanted attentions.

His inability to perform had seen to it that the closest they got to intercourse was him drunkenly thrusting his half flaccid cock into a pillow beside Felicity on one of the few nights where she slept in their bedroom.

She had made herself quite unappealing most times, using ground white chalk to lighten her face to a sickly pale, and advising her old, but apparently stupid, husband that it was often her ‘delicate’ flow; and the mere suggestion of such had him refusing to even allow her in the marriage bed; forcing her to stay in her room (lest anyone learn of such a thing!). For Felicity this was the best she could have hoped for and she would often while away the hours sitting in the bay window, basking in the warm afternoon sun, reading whatever book she could get her hands on.

Her husband thought little of a woman reading, but the housemaid, Evelyn, would often sneak books into Felicity’s room from the vast library on the first floor.

The house itself was beautiful, and Felicity often wished to see more of it than she was able, but if staying in her room feigning poor health kept her from her abhorrent husband, then so be it.

It was one such day, in the middle of the afternoon, that Felicity was startled by a thunderous knock on the door. She looked up sharply from her little nest of pillows and books, and after not hearing the cheery sound of Evelyn talking through the door, Felicity quickly pushed the books under her bed and made herself appear as miserable as humanly possible as she sat, hunched over, in her rocking chair which was positioned the dreariest corner of the room.

“Come in,” she answered faintly as she looked down at a needlepoint she’d been pretending to do for months.  
The door opened and her imposing husband stood in the doorway, looking down at her with distaste. “You shall clean yourself up tonight,” he said brusquely, but before she could enquire why such a demand was needed, he continued. “We will be travelling some way to another county and you will accompany me.”

“May I enquire how long we will be gone?”  
His lips tightened, “Four days.”  
“And may I enquire where we will be going?”  
“Starling.”  
There were more questions on the tip of Felicity’s tongue, but she could tell by the twisted expression on her husband’s face, that he would see to answering no more.

“The journey is a day’s carriage ride away and you will be ready to leave tonight.”  
She offered him a courteous smile before he left just as thunderously as he’d arrived.

A fainter knock followed a few moments later and Evelyn let herself in.  
“A trip sounds exciting,” the girl only a few years younger than Felicity gushed.  
“A trip with that old flapdoodle,” Felicity bemoaned before both woman broke out laughing.

“In truth, I hear Starling is a lovely estate,” Evelyn sighed listlessly as she pulled the travelling trunk from under Felicity’s bed.  
“Do you know the reason for our travel? Mr Flapdoodle normally detests fresh air and scenery of any kind.”

“I hear the Queens who own the Estate have had a son return from sea, a revered Captain of the Marines I hear. Served in the Royal Fleet and not a blemish to his name,” Evelyn chatted away as she began the arduous task of packing Felicity for the trip.  
Felicity laughed whimsically. “You seem to know an awful lot about him.”  
“See I know someone who knows someone who knows his younger sister’s governess,” Evelyn explained and Felicity didn't doubt the gossip fervour of the house staff. “I hear he is quite the catch,” a smile crept up the ruddy face of her maidservant and friend. “You should take that red dress, it does look stunning on you.”

She retrieved the same from the closet and gently spread the scarlet gown across her splendid white linen bed.

“You forget that I’m married Evelyn, I’m not there to be stunning,” Felicity replied as her finger slowly glided down the fine, gauzy fabric. “I’m there to be paraded around like an accessory, to show a man’s virility and to be spoken about behind closed doors about why I am, as of yet, without child, and how wickedly barren my womb is.”

“You have an imagination like no other,” Evelyn remarked with a peppered laugh; and she packed the dress all the same.

“Perhaps the old man will have a heart attack on the journey there from all the fresh air and you shall arrive a rich widow ready to be swept off her feet by a real man with a cock made for pleasure itself,” the younger woman grinned before Felicity clipped her hand playfully across Evelyn’s arm.  
“Evelyn!”  
She smirked. “I’ll wish it all the same.”

**•|•**

The journey was an arduous one as the carriage trundled along cobbled and dirt roads. Musty smells permeated the small confines, and Malcolm insisted that the velvet curtains being drawn. But once he was asleep, snoring loudly on the bench across from her, Felicity pulled back a corner of her curtain and watched adoringly as the world passed her by.

Had her husband had the fortitude to continue the journey without stopping they would have made the same late after night fall, but instead they had stopped at a rented room for the night, so as to arrive at Starling Estate fresher than they might have after a full day’s travel.

As it was, they arrived a little before noon, when the sun was bathing the ground in a halo of vibrant light and the birds that nested in the willowy trees which lined the Estate’s drive, were well and truly awake.

It was her husband who stepped out of the carriage first, all prim and proper with a black dinner jacket, polished cane, and a stout expression; a self-important gentleman.

Felicity caught her breath in the carriage while she waited for her husband’s hand which never came. Unsure what to do Felicity inched closer to the door when a large hand appeared in front of it. Assuming it was some poor unfortunate help her husband had sent to fetch her, Felicity took it and stepped out of the carriage.

When a gentle breeze brushed against her face she sighed happily over the sound of her husband conversing excitedly about money with another man close in age. It may have been the liveliest she had ever seen the man, but she preferred to focus on the balmy breeze that smelled like roses and freedom.

Oliver felt the warm and dainty hand grip his as he held it out to the man’s wife, whom he’d erroneously left to her own devices in the back of the carriage. Expecting a buxom women near in age to his own mother, Oliver was aghast when, instead, a young maiden with a spill of a few loose golden curls and ivory skin stepped from the carriage.

He opened his mouth to welcome her, but no words came out, and instead he simply watched her as a timid smile turned up the corners of her rosy lips when a fragrant gust of wind caught them.

Lady Merlyn was beautiful.

“Yes?” Felicity asked, looking down to the voice that had spoken her name softly.  
She found a man, likely a few years older than her, with a quaff of sandy blonde hair and the bluest eyes she’d ever stumbled across. His jaw was defined with a surprising bristled beard and quite noticeably missing the mutton chop sideburns that were prevalent amongst gentleman of the day. His impressive physique was wrapped in a Royal Navy uniform of a luxuriant blue buttoned dress coat embellished with gold, and vibrant white trousers, while a cobalt and satin cravat sat tied around a high collared shirt.

Their eyes remained tethered as Felicity stepped off the last carriage step, and his hand lingered there much longer than it needed to, or ought.

Oliver had heard the dislikeable man had found himself another wife and was recently wed after hearing the news from his mother. He had laughed at the poor woman's misfortune before he realised what the stiffly haughty man lacked in charm and wit, he made up for in pockets of money that was rivalled only by his own family's amassed wealth.

But looking at his beguiling wife now he felt guilt ridden for his off handed comment about the desperation of such a woman; because Lady Merlyn looked neither homely nor desperate.

“Thank you,” she breathed as she slipped her hand from his and in an instant Oliver lamented over the empty air she'd left behind. He watched her as she tucked fallen hair neatly behind her ears, which were adorned in delicate pearl earrings. It was quite unexpectedly that Oliver pictured himself gently brushing his knuckles across her powdery cheek to carefully take the earrings from her ears before they retired for the night; together. Such an absurd imagining; he hardly knew her. And yet he did not immediately banish the thought, but rather he left it to linger.

“You must have had quite the journey,” Oliver commented, afraid that his lack of speech would soon have her questioning his intelligence.

But, unwittingly Felicity took the comment as one on the state of her white muslin dress and heavy tweed Redingote along with the practical but unappealing shoes she had worn for the journey. She fidgeted with her hair as her tongue wet her dry, nude lips.

“Perhaps I might retire to rest a few moments and return far more presentable to my lord,” Felicity politely responded.  
“I am no Lord milady. That would be a title bestowed on my father,” Oliver countered with a lopsided smile.  
She nodded, just the once, and a tumble of hair fell over one eye that Oliver instinctively found himself brushing back.

Grossly aware of his inexplicable forwardness, Oliver stepped back and dropped his eyes shamefully.

“My very good friend, John Diggle will see you to the guest house where you’ll be staying. My mother has arranged a waiting maid to help you dress and un…,” he paused to expel a breathy sigh, “…dress.”  
“Thank you Mr…?”  
He walked his eyes back up to meet with her expressively liquid eyes.  
“Queen, Oliver Queen,” he answered, tipping his head with gentlemanly pleasantry.  
Felicity tempered her smile as she recounted Evelyn's words; he certainly was blessed with quite a pleasing countenance.

“Thank you Mr Queen, please pass my humblest apologies to your mother, the lady of the house, for slipping away instead of joining her for tea.”  
Oliver appeased the worry from her alabaster skin with a charming smile. “I'm sure she will readily understand milady.”

Felicity followed John around to the path that lead to the western wing of the sprawling Manor and just before she disappeared from view, she glanced over her shoulder with an engaging smile that reached its warmth up into her eyes. And he was quite smitten.

**•|•**

With thoughts of her still bouncing around his addled mind, Oliver considered it polite to tell their visitor that his wife had retired for a short rest; seeing as he hadn’t seemed to show any consideration to his most beautiful and precious gift since arriving. But when Oliver strolled up to the wiry man who was gassing away with Oliver’s father, he doubted Merlyn even capable of caring even a fraction about where she was.

“Your wife is quite lovely,” Oliver's father Robert Queen, a man of the same age as Malcolm with a daughter not far off the same age as Felicity, remarked. Tipping his top hat, Robert added a secondary “quite lovely.”

Instead of garnishing ardent praise on a woman who was certainly the most beautifully ethereal woman Oliver had ever laid eyes on, Malcolm scoffed at the comment with a bitter growl.

“Always sickly and quite plain, but I did her a favour by marrying her,” he chuffed while he puffed up his slender chest.  
Oliver doubted that very much but he held his tongue from ridiculing the sentiment.

“Have you heard from that wretched son of mine yet Oliver?” Malcolm barked as his feet shifted in the gravel.  
“Still at sea Mr Merlyn,” Oliver replied with only the bare minimum of courteously that would be expected of him.  
“Until he makes a rank worthy of his last name; he should stay there.” Malcolm blustered out a laugh but Oliver neglected courtesy that time and remained tight-lipped and unamused by the belittling of a dear friend.

Robert however offered a light chuckle before the three men made their way inside the impressive Estate house, lavish in its structure and opulent in its furnishings. It was an Estate that had sat in the Queen name for generations gone, and was widely known as one of the finest in all England.

  
**•|•**

When a suitable amount of time passed for Felicity to safely assume her husband was likely reeking of foul cigar smoke and red-nosed on liquor, she buttoned up her plain coat and headed for the door. She probably had at least two hours before her absence would be noticed and, after been cooped up and practically caged within Kilarny Estate for the last 6 months, Felicity ached to wander the rolling green hills of Starling.

As she walked towards the untamed reaches of the property, passed the manicured lawns, Felicity pulled the pins that had tried to hold her hair pinned and ladylike, dutifully placing each hairpin on the exposed ruched top of her chemise until her hair hung free around her shoulders and swirled around in the delicate breeze.

She walked a little faster to a ridge-line of trees and looked back only the once before she slipped through the natural fence.

On the other side lay a tumble of richly green hills where her relaxed fingertips could brush over the heads of the tallest grass shoots as Felicity waded slowly through them.

A smile blanched her face as the faster she walked the more the once-gentle breeze slapped at her cheeks. She inhaled the fresh air like a new born as her pace quickened to a light jog. Her dress flapped around her ankles before Felicity lifted her skirt and petticoat at her shapely waist and laughed recklessly-loud before she ran, as fast as she possible could and in no particular direction.

After stopping, Felicity toed off her shoes and balanced them both on the fingers of one hand while the other gathered her skirt into a knot. Her bare toes dug into the fertile soil, and she shrieked gingerly as the mud sunk between her toes. She had missed that sensation ever so much.

A light early afternoon rain dappled against her body before Felicity tipped her head upwards and let it mist across her dewy complexion. Her happiness was more than she had felt in over 6 months and her chest heaved as she attempted to inhale every scent and texture in the air.

She looked down at her muddy toes and the brown mess that stained the twisted hem of her gowns and then Felicity made a rather impetuous decision – she sat down amongst the tall grass and then lay down in the same, having it swallow her from sight completely.

The rain continued falling, still no more than a light scattering mind you, as Felicity spread her arms and closed her eyes.

She could stay like that for as long as time would allow it.

Unsure how many minutes swept by, Felicity stayed just like that, while beads of water slid down the smiling apples of her cheeks and with her eyes closed, she counted each one as if they were magic. If there was to be such a thing as heaven at the end of a long and toiling life, she was certain it would feel like that very moment.

“Are you alright milady?” a warm but raspy voice asked from above her.

Felicity's eyes flung open to find the same strapping man in his navel uniform standing beside her and looking, puzzled, down at her.  
“Oh dear,” she apologised as she sat up, her back stiff like a floorboard and she couldn’t bear to look at him. “I must look like a right fool of a girl.”  
She expected a scolding of sorts, but all she heard was concern in his low and husky voice. “Have you fallen?”  
Her eyes squinted and the bridge of her nose crinkled, both impulses Oliver found himself quite smitten with.  
“Oh no,” she quipped, low and hesitant. “I’m just awfully fond of the rain.”  
She found herself laughing softly at the absurdity of what she was saying, but it was unmistakably the truth.  
“May I sit with you?”  
His question came unexpected and Felicity chuckled at the very thought of it, but when she managed to look up at him she saw he was quite serious. “This is your family’s grass,” she remarked with a pouted smile, “It is I who should have sought permission from you.”

Oliver nodded agreeably. “You may sit here on this field in the rain,” he paused and she opened her mouth to cordially thank him, but he continued before she could. “But only if you allow me to sit with you.”  
Felicity gestured to the spot beside her and chuckled. “Of course.”  
“I never caught your name from your own lips milady,” Oliver charmed as he sat down with his cumbersome legs tented out in front of him.  
“Felicity Smoak,” she replied hastily before she realised her error. “Felicity Merlyn, of course, I mean no disrespect to my husband, nor to the great privilege of bearing his name. It was simply a slip of my tongue and my manners, please excuse me,” she explained, carefully keeping her disdain for the man guarded behind a practiced smile.  
“Trust me, I have no respect for the man so no disrespect from your mouth was taken,” Oliver explained, his disdain clear for anyone to see.

“Oh.” The word popped from her mouth like a soft gasp. Though she wouldn’t admit such a thing, having someone who didn’t think the business man without scruples was someone to be revered was quite refreshing.  
“Apologies,” Oliver said, though his tone was not one to verify the sentiment. “I spoke out of turn.”  
Felicity twiddled her finger around the tail of the red ribbon that sat just under her breasts. “Might I hear it anyway?” she asked, glancing up only momentarily.  
Oliver clasped his hands in front of him and let out a troubled sigh. “Let’s just say he is not a man I would lift a flintlock to protect and I have lifted a flintlock for both stranger and friend.”  
“He has a son does he not?” Oliver bobbed his head in a shallow nod before Felicity continued, “I have yet to meet the boy.”

“Boy?” Oliver laughed raucously, while Felicity adopted a slight pout. “Thomas is my age and we are good friends.”  
“He speaks of him as though he were dead or somewhat disadvantaged. I thought perhaps he was living with carers elsewhere,” Felicity remarked.  
“Their relationship is not a good one, and Tommy has all but washed his hands of the man, and any inheritance that went along with it. He might as well be dead to him,” Oliver explained while Felicity listened.

The rain started to fall heavier and faster and very soon both Oliver and Felicity found themselves sitting amongst a most torrential of rain storms. They both stood hastily but before Felicity could run in the direction she had come from, Oliver caught her slender elbow and pointed down the hill.

“The house is quite far away. I know of somewhere closer where we can wait for it to pass,” he elucidated as his fingers lingered on the arm of her wet coat.

They took off running down the rolling hill, with Oliver frequently glancing back to ensure Felicity was close and safe, until they reached a lake that seemed to appear out of nowhere. A boardwalk of planks traversed the mirrored lake that was heavy with moss and lily pads. At the end of the path sat an island burgeoning with tall willow trees and water weeds, amidst which was built a little cabin with a sharply pitched roof and a shingled façade.

Wordlessly, Felicity followed Oliver across the surprisingly sturdy bridge as the heavier drops of water rippled the pond around them. Expecting something quite different inside, Felicity was surprised when they stepped into a cosy little hut where the first floor stretched long ways down through a comfortable lounge and into a tiny kitchen of sorts, before what looked like a porch gave a most enthralling view of the rest of the lake. Above their heads was a lofted bedroom that Felicity couldn’t quite tilt her head to see much more than the stairs that led up to it.

“Does your staff live here?” Felicity wondered aloud as her eyes roved curiously around the tidy, but simple furnishings.  
Oliver shrugged off his coat and hung it on a bent nail beside the door. “I prefer the solitude over the bustle of the house so I live here,” he replied as he reached for Felicity’s coat.  
After letting her sodden coat fall from her body Felicity’s eyes blew wide. “Oh forgive me for speaking ill of your home,” she remarked with a grimaced expression.

Oliver chucked as he gently hung her coat on the single hook beside the nail. “Your apology isn’t necessary Mrs Merlyn, this is quite a change to the Manor.”  
Felicity reactively winced to hearing her name from his mouth and though she tried to appease the same with a soft cough, Oliver noted her distaste.

“May I be forward and ask that I call you Felicity?”  
A smile grew over her shivering lips. “You may Mr Queen.”  
“Then it seems only fair that you address me as Oliver.”  
She tipped her head graciously. “That seems only fair indeed.”

She shivered involuntarily and Oliver moved quickly to wrap a knitted blanket from the couch around her svelte shoulders. “I’ll light the fire to warm you up.”  
“Are you not cold?” she asked as her eyes wandered across the pale shirt that was now glued to his carved chest. She found the sight quite alluring and her core grew hot, low in her belly.

What Felicity did not realise, of course, was that her dress, sodden and clinging, was giving Oliver an almost identical feeling that thrummed down between his legs.

Forcing himself to look away, Oliver set his mind on the task of reigniting the embers in the fireplace. They lapsed into idle chatter about the journey from her home to his, and that she had no siblings and only a mother who lived not far out of Kilarny, in a house Mr Merlyn graciously rented for her.

But every so often Oliver’s attention would fall away from the infant fire, and become enraptured in Felicity. She was easily the most stunning woman his eyes had ever been auspicious enough to look on; and he had looked on many as an eligible bachelor. Her features were delicate but eluded so much life and character that he found himself drawn to even the most diminutive of things; such as the slight dimple when she smiled, or perfect peak of her rosy cupid’s bow. He was even besotted with the way her fingers delicately fidgeted with the frayed hem of the blanket, or the way her eyes softened when she spoke about things she enjoyed.

And all those things had nothing on the ardent joy her porcelain face radiated when she spoke about her love of reading.

He could listen to her talk about that for as long as she might allow it, and he would savour every moment.

Her cheeks blushed when she caught his lingered stares, but Oliver couldn’t seemed to drag his eyes away from her. So they sat with their eyes tangled until Felicity finally filled the quiet.

“Your family must be glad to have you back,” she commented and Oliver drew his eyes lethargically away.  
“My sister, I am not so sure about,” he jested. “But it is nice to be on land.”  
“Surrounded by water,” Felicity teased, to which Oliver chortled.  
“I’m afraid I couldn’t sleep without the sound of water nearby.”

“And your wife or fiancée, does she mind this eclectic abode?”  
His laughter settled for a moment. “I don’t have a wife, no wife would live here.”  
Felicity smiled brightly as a genuine laugh bubbled forth from her lips. “One might for love.”  
“Did you marry for love?” he asked injudiciously, before he caught himself. “I’m sorry, that question was too personal and not my place to enquire about.”

Felicity glanced outside before she stood and unravelled the blanket from around her body. “The rain seems to have cleared,” she remarked sensibly. “I should probably return to the house and ready myself for dinner this evening.”  
“I’ll accompany you,” Oliver added as Felicity made her way to the door.  
“If it is quite alright with you Mr Queen, Oliver,” she started softly, “I should quite like the solitude and I remember the way.”  
He nodded gently. “As you wish. I shall see you tonight?”  
“I should think so,” she whispered before she took her coat from the hook and left.

**•|•**

They barely spoke before dinner but were seated across the finely set table from one another and much of the night was noted with artful glances across the table, around the centrepiece of cut lilies.

Of course Oliver’s family were there, both Mr and Mrs Queen, a woman of elegant beauty but weary eyes, and his sister, a pretty girl of 13 with mousey brown hair and deeply-curious hazel eyes; and it was her who broke through the ambience noise with her forward words.

“You are so much younger than Mr Merlyn,” she announced across the table.  
“Thea!” her father condemned brusquely, while Oliver tried his hardest to keep decorum and not laugh.  
Thea shrugged beside him. “I’m not lying.”  
“That’s enough dear,” Moira Queen remarked and her daughter huffed. “Their marriage is none of our business and not for polite conversation.”  
“Did you have a large wedding?” Thea enquired before looking at her mother as if to enquire whether _that_ question was an appropriate one.  
“No, just a small one,” Felicity replied shyly. It was hardly the joyous occasion it should be in a young girl’s life, and to speak of it might show her rue.  
“Did you have a beautiful gown?”  
Felicity smiled politely. “It was lovely.”

“What is it you do at your home?” Thea asked casually.  
“Some needlepoint,” Felicity replied softly, albeit a lie. “I enjoy reading,” she added, completely aware that her husband would find such an admission distasteful.

And, right on cue, he scoffed loudly at the suggestion. “You’re married, what want do you have for books and fairy tales?”  
_Lest she die of boredom_, remained safety tucked behind her smile. “I think knowledge is very befitting to both man and woman, grown or child, irrespective of status.”  
He stabbed a potato as he sneered at her.  
“I would agree with Ms Felicity,” Oliver piped in. “There is much to be learned regardless of who we are. Schooling is deeply important and should be available for all who seek it.”

Malcolm didn’t scoff at Oliver’s words and after only a moment of stale silence, Robert Queen swiftly changed the topic to an engaging one of importing muslin as the demand for it rose. Noting all the other adults were fully immersed in the conversation, Felicity mouthed Oliver a soft “Thank you.”  
And he replied with a whispered, “You’re most welcome.”

**•|•**

It was late in the evening when Felicity bid farewell to the maid who had helped her undress for the night. The guesthouse was a pleasant 1 bedroom stone home and with the fire roaring in the living room, it was nicely warmed. She shifted the thin nightgown on her shoulders, ensuring her body was appropriately sheathed behind it before she padded slowly towards the glowing light in the bedroom. She had hoped the time-consuming and arduous task of undressing and unpinning her elaborate hairstyle, might have seen Malcolm fall asleep.

Unfortunately, the fates would not be so kind to Felicity and that evening as she tiptoed into the bedroom she found Malcolm sitting at the foot of the bed, still dressed.

“The hour is late husband,” she remarked, as kindly as she could stomach. “Best you dress for bed.”  
He stood up, no doubt to tower over a barefoot Felicity. “You embarrassed me in there,” he growled, his voice menacingly low.  
“Of course that would never be my intention,” Felicity replied calmly. While she had a fire inside of her, there was no point unnecessarily inflaming a situation. “Perhaps a brandy before bed? I could pour it if you like.”  
She turned to head back towards the parlour when he grabbed her wrist and tugged her roughly back towards him.  
“You insolent little gutter rat, you embarrassed me in front of some very important people tonight.” The grip he had around her wrist was tight and burned her skin as he twisted it.  
“You do a fine job of doing that yourself,” Felicity hissed back as she tore her wrist out of his grasp.  
The slap that followed was ferocious and her head snapped to the side as the sound of it rang in her ears.

“Get on the bed,” he scathed as he demonstrably rolled up his sleeves.  
She licked a dash of blood from her lip before she turned slowly, her eyes challenging his. “No.”  
The second time he slapped her she lifted her shoulders and steadied her back.  
“Get on the bed on your stomach, now,” his voice rose to a drunken boom, but Felicity didn’t so much as flinch.  
“No.”

Oliver was walking past, far closer to the quaint guest house than he ought, or needed, when the ruckus caught his attention. His steps quickened and before he knew it, he was pounding rather heavily on the solid oak door.

“When I am done with you tonight, you will not sit tomorrow,” Malcolm threatened in a hushed tone as he left the bedroom with a slammed door.  
Felicity flinched at the _thud_ of the door closing before she finally allowed herself a few shaky breaths.

“Oliver, it is late,” Malcolm remarked as he opened the door to Oliver’s grimaced face.  
“Is everything alright in here?” Oliver questioned as he looked over Malcolm’s shoulders into the house, at least as much as he could.  
“Of course,” Malcolm smirked. “We are quite well.”  
“I heard some raised voices.”  
“You must be mistaken Oliver, my wife is however quite young and, between you and me, quite frisky. Perhaps those were the noises you heard.”

Oliver’s eyes narrowed; he didn’t believe a single word the man spoke.  
“Of course, perhaps it was,” Oliver agreed, changing tack. “You know I was hoping to discuss some business propositions with you. I am after all, as you know, back from sea with my pockets lined and I am eager to grow my own wealth.”  
At the mention of money, Malcolm’s thin lips twisted upwards. “Of course.”  
“Perhaps a Brandy and a few moments of your time. I am quite eager to invest.”

Malcolm glanced back to the closed bedroom door and decided she could wait in fear for a little longer.  
“Of course, come in.”

Oliver followed Malcolm into the room and waited for him to begin to pour the golden liquid before he excused himself to the washroom. Sidestepping the same, Oliver knocked softly on the bedroom door.

Felicity opened it a crack and wasn’t surprised to find Oliver there, after all she had heard him speaking through the door.

“Are you quite alright Felicity?” he asked. He looked down at her to study her face, but the shadows in the room devoured most of it.  
She nodded softly, just enough for him to see. “I am fine, but why are you here?”  
“I heard, on my way home, I heard you,” he whispered, stumbling over the words.

“I am deeply sorry for disrupting your stroll,” she whispered, her words thin and frayed around the edges, as though she was on the verge of tears. “I assure you I am quite alright though.”  
“You don’t need to apologise for my being here,” he assured her before he glanced over his shoulder. “He will not be bother you again tonight.”

**•|•**

An hour later, Felicity came out in her robe to find Malcolm asleep on the couch, and for a brief but satisfying moment, she imagined finding him dead like that one day.

“He still can’t handle his liquor,” Oliver remarked as he stood up from the arm chair when Felicity entered the room.  
Felicity leaned against the doorway and smiled wistfully. “I spike it at home with something they give to hysterical ladies, or a concoction of horse tranquilisers a veterinary friend of mine gave me,” Felicity admitted with a casual shrug.  
Oliver walked slowly towards her with a gentle smile lingering across his wet lips. “You are a most surprising woman,” he whispered as they stood barely inches from each other.  
“And do you like surprises Oliver?” she spoke in a whisper that matched his.  
Quivering his hand touched her face so lightly that Felicity thought she might have imagined it there. “I am very fond of surprises milady,” he sighed as he leaned even closer still until the air between them warmed with their shared breaths.

His thumb grazed her supple cheek. “Does he tell you how utterly, devastatingly beautiful you are Felicity?”  
She looked down, worry threading across her expressive brow. “Mr Queen please,” she begged with a fragile voice.  
He lifted her face tenderly at her chin. “I am sorry. I have upset you and made you uncomfortable,” he recanted gently.  
“It’s not that,” she breathed, shaking her head slowly.  
“Then what is it?”  
“I’m afraid.”  
She looked up at him with pristinely blue eyes.  
“Of him? I will stay and ensure he doesn’t come near you,” Oliver promised.  
Her fingertips danced over his hand that held her face. “Of you.”

His pained expression was apparent. “Of me?”  
“Afraid that you perhaps might show me what I am missing out on,” she admitted as her small hand folded over his. “That you might awaken in me something I have put away.”  
“I would never hurt you,” he swore.  
“I don’t even know you and yet I believe you wouldn’t.” Her hand slowly dragged over the cuff of his formal shirt and stilled at the crook of his elbow. “But I am married and of no means without my husband. With my husband my mother is housed and clothed, without such I fear both she and I will be for ruin. So you can see my dilemma Mr Queen.” Her whispered voice shook from her trembling lips as the warmth of his body bled through his shirt and into her palm.

“I see your dilemma Felicity and yet you haven’t told me to leave,” he ushered softly as he glanced towards the door a few feet away. “Because you need only ask and I would, the very instant they came from your exquisite lips.”  
“I haven’t because I know for a certainly that I do not want you to leave,” she confessed.  
“What is it that you want for then Felicity?”

She blinked downwards as her quickening breath lifted her breasts beneath the gauzy fabric of her nightgown.

“Perhaps just a kiss,” she prayed to the floor before she lifted her eyes to him. “So that I might know what one might feel like when it is soft and wanted.”  
Oliver leaned in and gently took her mouth with his own. It was tender and chaste and her lips quivered against his as her eyes drifted closed.

What it lacked in lusty fervour, it made up for many times over in intimacy like neither of the two had experienced, before they broke apart; leaving the kiss achingly incomplete.

Her finger tapped the edge of his full and parted lips as a smile lifted hers. “I shall steel that away for a lifetime, but for now I should retire for the night,” she remarked softly.  
“I will stay,” Oliver assured her as his hand slipped unhurriedly from her face.  
“You needn’t.”  
“I want to.”

She found him a spare quilt in the bedroom and watched as he squished his large frame into an armchair by the roaring fire.

With two very sweet smiles, they bid each other a good night.


	2. Chapter 2

Thea showed up the next morning, at Oliver’s request, to show Felicity around the nearby town. Malcolm was unimpressed with the idea, but he let her go at Oliver’s insistence over breakfast.

The town was a short and pleasant ride away that they took on a hoodless carriage. Such a journey allowed Felicity to breathe in the nicely fragrant air that she had grown deeply fond of. Starling was a lusher borough than the place Felicity now called home, and she watched blissfully as flowering bushes and rolling hills passed by.

The town itself was a bustling little thoroughfare with cobbled streets and a row of almost any shop you could need, with the more _unappealing_ ones sitting behind the main road. Their first shop was a drapery where Thea ordered a dress be made in three different shades of peach, so that she might better decide after the fact which one suited her complexion. The seamstress never so much as blinked, let alone balked at the suggestion and it became clear to Felicity that the younger Queen was without want.

And while Felicity might have ordinarily found such a display of wealth and station disheartening, she also noted the way Thea discretely dropped a handful of coins into the hat of a beggar they passed.

Their next stop was a jewellery store, filled with a great many fine necklaces, rings, and broaches. But Felicity was most drawn to a small cabinet of hairpins and in particular a comb decorated with ivory pearls and dainty pink diamonds.

“You should buy it,” Thea remarked as she had the jeweller wrapping something she had purchased.  
Felicity smiled kindly as she gently shook her head. “I’m afraid the small allowance I am bestowed with will not cover the cost, but it is of no consequence,” she remarked as she stepped away.  
Thea gestured for the shop assistant to come, which they did. “We’ll have this one too please,” Thea declared, and before Felicity could argue the assistant had taken the same to wrap.

“Consider it a present,” Thea smiled coyly.  
“From you?” Felicity enquired.  
“From my bother actually,” Thea remarked, the coy smile staying. “He insisted that if you were to see something you liked that I should get it for you and he would see to paying me back.”  
Felicity could feel a blush across her cheeks. “Your brother is very kind.”  
“Not often,” Thea teased. “He has been home for months now and I’ve never seen him livelier than he was discussing books with you last night after dinner.”

“He’s an avid reader,” Felicity countered, as she tried to tame her smile.  
“He’s not really, not at all.” Thea wandered aimlessly around the store looking at various displays. “In fact, I don’t think it’s the books that have caught his eye.”

She stopped walking and looked up at Felicity whose smile had turned to worry.  
“Don’t worry,” Thea whispered as she stepped closer, “I would never say a thing about it.”  
The shop assistant handed Thea the two parcels and Thea in turn handed the one to Felicity. “Wear it tomorrow night at the dance,” she suggested with a wink.

**•|•**

  
“How was your trip,” Oliver enquired when he found Thea in her bedroom come the mid afternoon.  
“Felicity is delightful,” Thea gushed as she regimentally brushed her hair. She glanced up and smiled at Oliver's reflection in her ornate vanity mirror. “And very beautiful.”

Oliver shifted his weight reactively from one foot to the other as he placed a finger under his starched collar.  
“I’m sure she is both,” he replied judiciously.  
Thea put her ivory-handled brush down on the French-style vanity before she turned on the padded stool to scrutinise her older brother's demeanour.  
“But of course you haven’t noticed either of those things,” she teased with a knowing smile.  
Oliver could do very little with the lump in his throat.

“I’ve seen how you look at her, the long glances, the fleeting smiles,” Thea continued as she rose from her seat and fixed Oliver's buttoned lapel. “Are you falling for her?”

Oliver left the question hanging as he walked to Thea's door and closed it. With his palm flat against the painted carved oak, his chin dropped to his chest and his shoulders slumped.

“I’m afraid I may have already fallen,” he confessed with a weighty sigh. “In fact I consider myself beguiled with her. Enraptured by her. Thoroughly entranced with every facet of her. I am very much falling.”  
He pushed himself off from the door and wandered over to Thea's open window and it's advantageous view of the guest house in the mid-distance.

“Oliver, she’s married,” Thea reminded him, albeit unnecessarily.  
He was, after all, painfully aware of that truth, for had she not have been he would have already sent for her mother and promised himself in courtship to her if she would have accepted him.

He would have lavished her with any such gift she could have requested and any whim she might have fancied.

He would have pledged his love to her and all that came fettered to it.  
“I know,” he lamented bitterly. “To a man that brings darkness to cloud over her light.” A frustrated hand tore through his floppy hair.

“So, what are you going to do about it then brother?”  
“Nothing.” He spat the word out through a clenched jaw. “There is nothing I can do. I most certainly would not wish to ruin her reputation or cause her suffering in any way.”

Oliver turned away from the window with a deflated sigh. “You mustn’t tell a soul Thea.”  
The younger Queen nodded as she gave Oliver's arm a gentle squeeze. “I won't tell a single soul. When we returned she asked about the stables, so John took her there.”

  
**•|•**

  
Oliver discovered Felicity in the stables where Thea had suggested he might, and by the time he got there John had left and Felicity was alone, gently stroking the muzzle of an ebony horse.

Oliver found himself quietly watching Felicity from the doorway in a few moments of careful silence. Her touch was so gentle and the smile she didn't know was being watched was faintly angelic.

“You ride?” he asked when his voyeurism no longer sufficed; he wanted to hear her words and engage with her eyes.

She turned slowly and seemed glad to find Oliver there. “Not particularly well,” she began, “I would love to learn though.”  
“I could teach you,” he offered without pause.  
“I’m sure you could,” she laughed airily. “Perhaps teach a great many things, but,” a forlorn sigh dimmed her radiance, “my husband would not allow it.”

“I might have a way that he would,” Oliver hinted with a smoky tone. “Would you permit me the chance to try? Wait here a few moments for me? Please,” he appealed.  
“A few moments and not a moment longer,” Felicity chortled.

Sure to his word Oliver returned with Thea and explained that Malcolm had given his permission to ride around the Estate once Oliver distracted him with talk of merchant ships and a box of the finest cigars.

Felicity rode in the front of Oliver with her hands on the reins while he coached her with a voice that brushed warm and doleful air down her neck.

“You’re a natural rider,” he whispered, leaning sinfully close to her neck to inhale the fragrant mist of perfumed oil on her neck.  
“Perhaps I have a good teacher,” Felicity breathed as she allowed her head to rest back on his broad chest.

Thea was riding a little ahead and when she stopped her horse on the cusp of a pocket of low trees, Felicity sat upwards and severed the contact between her and Oliver.  
“Are we stopping?” she asked as she twisted the reins in her hands.  
“I am,” Thea remarked before she found an apple in her saddlebag and took a bite. “You two have an hour or so,” she chatted with a mouthful of apple as she nodded towards the trees.

Behind the curtain of flowering trees, Oliver helped Felicity dismount with a hand on either side of her nipped waist. To her surprise Oliver then pulled out a hessian blanket and terrycloth wrapped around a few scones.

“A picnic? Are you trying to court me Mr Queen?” Felicity quipped as she sat on the blanket he'd laid out.  
“Would I be allowed such an honour?” Oliver asked honestly as he sat beside her, their fingers stretching to touch.  
“Our kiss last night, that was very forward of me,” Felicity apologised as she retreated her hand and laid it trembling on her lap.

Oliver turned her head gently with his knuckle and brushed his lips agonisingly close to hers. Her nose nuzzled into the side of his and her sticky breath misted against his lips as they paused, deliriously separated by a hair’s breadth of air.

Pressing his lips to hers Oliver traced his tongue across the seam of her lips making her keen against him, before he left the kiss, for then, unfinished.

“And that was very forward of me so now we are even,” he breathed as sultry air tickled her cheek.

They sat together like that, no more than their fingertips touching, talking about everything and nothing. He told her about the many wonderful places he’d been and she told him about the many wonderful places she’d read about.

Eventually their hands crept closer until his was sitting atop hers and their fingers were entwined.

Only the time flew by teasingly fast, and it was soon time to head back.

During dinner that evening they spoke together when they could without garnering unwanted attention. But all retired early and, thankfully, Malcolm drunk himself into a stupor that night and Felicity slept on the couch without incident.

**•|•**

  
The following day left no time for secret meetings as the Estate was besieged by arriving guests for the night’s festivities. All afforded to the two of them were passing glances as Oliver walked passed the first floor drawing room where Felicity enjoyed the company of the visiting ladies, as often as any excuse would allow him.

But those passing glances and momentary skips of her heart behind her tightly clasped stays, were plenty to lift both Felicity's demure smile and her very spirits.

The late afternoon saw Felicity dress for that evening in a willowy dress of the finest muslin in a rose-tinted ivory. The tightly fastened bodice had Felicity ribs aching and her chest fighting against the confinement as she carefully tied the ribbon of a dusky, pewter rose that beset her alabaster complexion quite perfectly.

It also matched the delicate hair comb that she set to one side of her sweeping and elegantly braided bouffant style, while loose curls framed her face gently and her lip rouge was the colour of a dewy pink rose petal.

Her nerves trickled down her spine as Felicity walked through the Estate doors, hung from her husband's arm like an empty marionette doll. But Felicity cared very little as her eyes scanned the room of unfamiliar faces until she found his.

He was dressed in what she could only assume was another of the navy’s finest suits. The colour was a deeper blue that in the smoky golden light the many candle chandeliers gave off, looked almost black. The embellishments were less ostentatious, and his chest was decorated with medals for valour or the like. His beard was neatly groomed and his longer hair was swept back and slightly wet so that it too appeared much darker than she knew it to be. But his eyes, even from across the room, those were as brilliantly blue as she knew them to be.

He had already spotted her the moment she'd stepped through the doors. Oliver had learned many crass words during his stints at sea or wandering through the many port taverns, and many of them were rumbling on his tongue as he devoured every perfectly tempting inch of her.

He adored her; mind, body, and spirit, and he did little to hide the brilliant smile he carried when she turned toward him.

His heart was unmistakably in her delicate, gloved hands.

Watching her be touted around the room by a man who had never deserved such a treasure was devastatingly painful for Oliver to watch, but he kept his eyes on her at all moments in case one might present itself to steal her away for a word, or even a mere moment in her aura.

That time eventually came late in the evening when Malcolm and some of the other chuffed males excused themselves to the gentleman's parlour to smoke away the rest of the night. Oliver declined and found Felicity standing on a lower balcony which overlooked the gardens and the shimmering pond in the distance which reflected the full silvery moon in a cloudless sky.

His fingers skimmed down her spine as he leaned his lips close to the soft crease at the back of her ear. It was lightly fragranced with lavender and Oliver let it entwine his senses before he stepped back, lest they be found so immorally close to one another.

“Leave with me,” he hushed as his warm breath spiralled like smoke in the slightly chilled air.  
“Imagine the rumours,” Felicity spoke listless.  
“I don’t care about them,” Oliver bickered like an stubborn child, a trait Felicity found amusingly endearing; but sadly unrealistic.

“You might,” she intoned as her eyes stretched over the vast land.  
Perhaps the sting of public outrage would be only momentary for him, the man to steal another's young wife; a newly wed even! But they both knew Felicity's brandishing would be far worse, and such a scandal would have far reaching and permanent consequences.

She knew how vile the whispers would be and how the taint would follow her. Perhaps happiness with Oliver would be worth such muck, and perhaps his wealth would provide a measure of mercy, but the stench of their scandal may make Oliver's quest for his own business endeavours near impossible and very certainly sullied.

“No matter the words spoken about it, I would never abandon you to their bitter rumours,” he assured her and while their acquaintance was fresh, Felicity trusted it deeply.

But she had trusted her father too, and it had been his foolishness that had landed her in this very position, and she lamented the same as she twisted the gaudy ring on her finger.

“I would treat you as ardently as you ought to be treated. My servitude to you every night would be without fail, and I would relish every word you said. I would kiss your very feet every night and listen to you read every morning.” Oliver lavished her with his idyllic words, and she lightly mewled at the picture he painted.

But nothing more could be said as the door opened and Malcolm stumbled into the open air, followed by the putrid stench of brandy.

He grabbed Felicity's wrist roughly. “It's time to go,” he growled with a darkness in his twisted brow and a slur in his speech.

“Perhaps a few more minutes, I am quite enjoying the fresh air,” Felicity respectfully requested with a tilt of her head.  
But his response was to twist her wrist in his grip.  
“Remove your hand sir, you are hurting her,” Oliver hastily reprimanded as he scowled down at Malcolm’s twisted fingers.  
“I will remind you Oliver she is my wife and not yours,” Malcom scathed.  
“And I’ll remind you Malcolm that you are a guest at my parents’ estate and a friend by my parents’ good nature,” Oliver bickered.

Malcolm let go of Felicity's wrist but his tone didn't soft. “It’s time to leave Felicity.”  
Unwilling to make a scene, Felicity offered Oliver a soothing smile.  
“Goodnight Mr Oliver, thank you for the lovely evening.”

**•|•**

  
As soon as the door closed to the guest house Malcolm pushed Felicity roughly against the wall, pressing her ruddy cheek into the ornate paper decorating the entrance. She felt the air empty from her lungs and a sharp bite of pain as he twisted her arm behind her back.

Although the man was not large and burly in nature, he was in fact taller than her by nearly 2 feet and, despite his age, he was stronger than her also. In a battle of power, Felicity feared she would lose.

But in a battle of wits; she stood a very good chance.

“Please husband you are hurting me and I know not why,” she rasped, her voice strained and her lips grazed the wall as she spoke.  
He didn't answer her, but he began petting the side of her neck with rough and sloppy kisses. Every one of them made her stomach knot with nausea and her body cringe.

When he reached her ear his teeth clamped down on her lobe and she hissed in pain.  
“Perhaps the country air has done us both some good,” he whispered in her ear, but unlike Oliver's deep, husky whisper that made her lips sigh and her body coo, Malcolm's drew bile up her throat and a tear to the corner of her eye.

He let her free and her arms banded reactively around her waist but she kept her face to the wall to hide her sorrow.

“Go to the bedroom,” he ordered as he loosened the laces of his heavy black boots. Felicity bit back the tears that threatened to fall and turned around with a lifted chin and straight shoulders.  
“It is late dear husband.” The words felt like poison in her throat. “I am feeling quite exhausted from the evening as I am sure you are too. Would you not rather undress and I shall wash your feet by the fire?”

He took her wrist and dragged her the short walk to the bedroom. “You can do that after I'm done with you,” he scowled.  
“There are people still at the party not far from here,” she pleaded as he began undressing.  
“So don’t scream.” The laugh that followed his words were hauntingly thin and Felicity wished she could block it out of her mind.

“You belong to me.” He kissed her brutally and his teeth raked over her bottom lip harshly before she used all her strength to push him away.  
“I belong to no one, I am not a possession,” she announced, keeping her shoulders lifted.  
“I paid for you,” he growled before he pawed at the tops of her breasts like an animal.

“Not like this,” she pleaded, gathering her wits about her with a few steadying breaths. “You’re right,” she added with a shaky purr as she helped unbutton his dinner jacket. “Perhaps we could be together tonight. But,” she paused to slip his jacket down his arms. “Permit me a drink first so that I may calm my nerves.”

She hung his jacket carefully over the reading chair in the corner, gracious for the distance that put between them. “Shall I pour you one too?”  
The idea lifted his thin lips into a wonky smile. “Yes, a double.”

Felicity walked to the living room and shook as she poured two glasses. After looking over her shoulder to ensure he hadn't followed her, Felicity found the small vile of horse tranquilizer and emptied it into Malcolm's drink.

She stayed in the room for as long as she thought she was able to before she carried both drinks to the bedroom.

Malcolm was naked when Felicity walked back in, perched on the foot of the bed, his cock flaccid between his legs. He took the drink from her and swallowed half of it down.

“Get undressed,” he ordered.  
She moved towards the doorway but his biting voice stopped her. “Here, in front of me. Show me what I pay for.”

With shaky hands Felicity rolled down each of her gloves while he watched, sipping his drink. She untied the ribbon next and lay it over his jacket.

“Faster,” he ordered as his wiry fingers coiled around his shaft.  
“It normally takes help,” she spoke softly, swallowing the sick feeling in her throat.  
“Allow me to help then,” he grunted before he drunk down the rest of his brandy and slammed the glass on the dresser as he made his way towards her.

“You will do as I say, and now, or I will see that your mother dies penniless and you become nothing more than a common whore,” he spat, and his voice stunk of alcohol.

He tore at one of the capped sleeves of her dress and the lace ripped apart in his hands. Felicity sobbed out a scream and screwed her eyes tightly closed, praying that her life end at that moment before he could take the very last part of her.

The _thud_ of Malcolm hitting the floor startled her eyes open and she gasped at the crumpled body at her feet. She kicked her toes into his chest and rolled him onto his back. Shaking, Felicity crouched down and checked his pulse.

He was still alive.

Without another thought Felicity ran from the house and in the only direction her heart took her.

**•|•**

  
Oliver returned to his house and shook off the light evening rain as he placed his lantern on the table beside the door. His heart was heavy with regret and twisted with rage. He should have knocked Malcolm out right where he stood and he should have demanded Felicity stay in the Estate house that night.

He should have done something more.

His jaw ached as he clenched his teeth. He had walked past the guest house and found it dark and silent. He had considered, rather anguished, about knocking on the door and demanding to see that Felicity was well.

He had toiled with ideas and schemes of how to set her free from that wretched man; from offering a great sum in exchange for him divorcing her to somehow seeing to his unfortunate demise and making Felicity a widow.

But during their talk in the field she had asked him not to trifle in her marriage and tonight she had begged him with her eyes to leave it be. Oliver knew in his heart that she did not wish to be saved by a man, even him. In fact what he adored the very most about her was her wish to save herself.

He hung his jacket up and walked the lantern deeper into his small abode. He enjoyed its tranquillity and as he kicked his boots off and left them where they lay, he enjoyed the freeness from civility it afforded him too.

He had always found himself roaming from this life; suffocated by its decorum and fastidious rules. In fact, Oliver often yearned for a solitary life in a small plot of land where not another human soul could be seen for miles. That was still his dream, only now he found himself imagining Felicity beside him and a family of children running around them in exhausting but happy circles.

He wondered, as he opened his shirt and unbuttoned his trousers, if she would like that. With his shirt open and his pants draping loose, Oliver tramped up the stairs.

The lantern at the bottom of the stairs cast fingers of amber-hued light all over the small house but it grew dim and shrouded in shadows as he neared the top of the stairs. At the top, Oliver shucked his pants and left them in a pile before he looked across to his bed.

What he saw had him fisting his hands into his eyes, imaging it was an apparition of a wanting heart; because he saw Felicity.

She was perched on the edge of his bed dressed in her clothes from the evening but without her gloves. Her once perfectly styled hair was now mostly fallen around her face in messy curls.

She stood up when she saw him and he stepped instinctively towards her.

She was no apparition.

“Did you mean it?” Felicity whispered with shaking words. “What you said, did you mean it?”  
“I meant every word I said to you tonight,” Oliver promised sincerely.

She kissed him desperately and he could taste her tears on his lips.  
“If I asked you to be with me tonight, would you?” Felicity asked as she held him tight to her chest.  
“Yes,” he sighed breathily.

“Permit me to know what the kindly touch of a man should feel like. What pleasure feels like.” She kissed him again, that time slow and trembled before she walked him back towards the bed. “Let me pretend that tonight I am yours and you are mine,” she cooed while her fingers ran under his open shirt, feeling the taut and smooth slopes of his chest.

His hand swept lovingly through her tresses, still damp with light perspiration from running there. His fingers brushed over the dainty hair clip while his other hand gently curved around her neck with his thumb stroking slowly up her supple cheek. And then he kissed her, passionately deep. Her mouth opened to him with a sigh of tepid air and Oliver slipped his tongue inside her warm, wet cavern, delicately exploring every corner.

Her tongue was far more reserved at first, coquettishly curling around his, before it grew more adventurous and in a few moments it was wondrously exploring his mouth. Her head rested in his palm and his fingers knotted in her hair as she pressed her willowy body against his much broader one.

It was Felicity that severed the kiss and Oliver lamented the loss with a swipe of his tongue across the smear of lipstick she had left behind.

Her fingers were shaking as she reached behind to unbutton her gown when Oliver caught them and smoothed his slightly calloused thumbs over the back of her knuckles.  
“You're shaking,” he breathed, before leaning forward to kiss her ruddy cheek.  
“I’ve never,” she looked down at her muddied shoes; she hadn’t even taken them off. She sighed, frustrated by the nervous energy pulsing through her body. “I’ve never been with a man, like this.”  
“Malcolm has never…?” his words trailed off in disbelief.  
“He can’t. I’m unable to get his body prepared.”  
“If his body isn’t prepared, I assure you Felicity it’s not your wrong,” Oliver assured her before he kissed her again.

Felicity fell artfully careless into the embrace of Oliver's bed with his lips tangled in hers and her hands exploring every inch of his chest.  
“Please,” she whimpered against his mouth and Oliver tore himself back, worry sewn across his brow.

She clung to the tails of his shirt as she sat up with a smile on her face. “Please help me get this dreadfully tight dress off,” she laughed, soft and contagious.

Oliver kneeled in front of her and gently released her foot from the brocade slipper before he did the same with the other. Then he rolled down each knee-high stocking and set them aside.

He bathed her supple skin in whiskery and intimate kisses while Felicity's chest fought her bodice and her fingers twisted fiercely in the quilted blanket. His kisses drove up the inside of her calf delicate and slow while he relished the keen mewls that filled the pitched ceiling.

When his attentions reached the inside of her knee, Felicity shivered as his agonizingly liquid breath melted into her skin.

Barefoot they stood and Oliver gazed at her with all the fondness he held shown in the softest tilt of his mouth and the blue whirlpools in his eyes.  
“Tell me to stop,” he begged as he dragged his knuckles down the slope of her neck.  
“Do you wish to stop?” Felicity asked as her body rocked up onto her toes and her palms steadied herself against his chest.

“For a certainty no,” he admitted with a shallow sigh as his thumb tapped her full lip. “But I fear that fear or anger or wine drove you here and that tomorrow regret will beset your beautiful face and sorrow will fill your eyes.”

Felicity pushed his shirt from the rounds of his shoulders and the fabric billowed to the floor. “I am not in fear of you Oliver,” she hummed before she placed a pure kiss on the convex of his chest. “I am rarely tempestuously angry, and certainly not hastily so.” Another kiss to the other side. “And I've had not even a drop of wine,” she whispered as she palmed his broad chest. “The only regret I will be afflicted with is that the morning might come too soon.” Her fingers reached the buttons of his cotton breeches.

He spun her and caught her at the waist as an airy laugh left her swollen lips. Deftly Oliver unbuttoned her gown and the gauzy fabric passed through his fingers like liquid while his knuckles faintly brushed down the top of her spine.

Her gown fell angelically like a pool of clouds around her feet before Oliver stooped to collect it. He picked it up gently and carefully folded it over the balustrade that ran along the edge of the lofted floor.

Felicity's scooped and sleeveless ivory petticoat draped beautifully over her full hips as Oliver mapped her silhouette up to the tiny hooks that held it closed across her back. He peeled them open while his lips traced the edges of the dainty tucks of lace that decorated the straps and neckline.

Once the undergarment hung loose around her back Oliver guided it off her shoulders, one side with a delicate touch and the other with a sensual kiss over the cusp, savouring the taste of her skin. It soon joined her gown before Oliver weaved his fingers down the laces on her short stays.

He could hear the tiny and shaky breaths coming from her mouth as she pulled her fallen hair to one side. Oliver began to unlace it, each whip of the twisted cord was followed by a wanton sigh from both. It dropped far less gracefully than the ones that preceded.

As Felicity turned, the spindles of light in the room bathed her in a warm amber glow as she stood in a simple chemise. It had no lace and no ornate embroidery, but Felicity standing in it looking up at him with softly parted lips was in fact a most bewitching sight.

“I know no more than this in the ways of intimacy,” Felicity breathed with shaky words as her fingers toyed with the plain cloth. “Although I am told some go no further into undress than this and if that so pleases you.”  
“And what would so please you?” he whispered, his lips nipping her throat.  
“If you were to want it, I would very like to be completely open to your gaze. To know its fire and its seduction.”

She looked up at Oliver with curious eyes as she wet her lips to continue, but he dropped to one knee before she could. Taking the hem in his hands, Oliver looked up the lines of her chest to catch her eyes.

“If I may,” he whispered and Felicity agreed with a small nod. As Oliver stood he took the chemise with him, exposing the supple curves of her milky thighs, the thatch of blonde hair on her mound, the soft slope of her belly, and her bare, rose-tipped breasts, until she lifted her arms and Oliver guided the chemise off her body.  
“You are beautifully magnificent,” Oliver breathed as his eyes drunk in the sight of her naked body.

“Where might you want me?” she asked nervously, but excited; his gaze made her feel both.  
“Will you sit for me please?”

Felicity perched on the edge of his bed with her hands demurely rested in her lap. Kneeling before her, Oliver gently spread her legs at the knees, causing her hands to fall to her sides.

The first stroke Oliver made with the flat of his tongue was gentle as it passed through Felicity's delicate fleshy pink folds. She reacted with a kittened mewl as her fingers tightened in the bed. The next stroke was far more decisive as it sliced deeper and the tip caught her bud. Felicity gasped at the sensation and reactively her back arched and her head threw back.

“Please,” she puffed as she drew her head back and watched Oliver between her legs. “Tell me what that was?” She licked her lips as she spoke and bliss set in her eyes.  
“Did you enjoy it?” Oliver questioned and Felicity nodded.  
“Quite,” she added with a puffy exhale.  
His fingers parted her blushed lips before he swept the tip of his tongue around her inner heat and teased it over her pearled clit.  
His name came like a strangled cry from her mouth before she clamped a hand across her panting lips.  
“No one can hear you but me,” he spoke against her thighs before he kissed them feverishly, “and I would enjoy hearing my name from your lips.”

He sucked gently on her nub while his thumb circled her soaking entrance. “Let me hear it,” he pleaded while his nose muzzled into her heat, inhaling her heady arousal.  
Her nimble fingers combed through his tresses. “Oliver,” she whispered and he rewarded the same with a light tap of her clit with his tongue.

“Oliver,” she hummed, fractionally louder than the last, while she knotted her fingers in his hair. At her entreaty, Oliver rolled her clit between his lips and gently sucked.  
“Oliver.” Her voice was slightly strained and her breath a little uneven.  
He sucked again, deeper, and Felicity let out a ragged breath.

He could taste the heat radiating from her body and he could feel the tiny shivers beneath her skin as he swirled his tongue through her sex. As she became wet with arousal, Oliver sunk a digit inside her and stroked her cushioned walls. She tightened around him and he began to slowly thrust, coaxing her to the edge of orgasm, and soon her body was ready for another.

His second digit slipped into her as he teased her clit between his lips. The stretch Felicity felt made her throw her head back in pleasure as Oliver buried them both to the third knuckle and twisted them inside her.

Lithely her head fell forward just as he looked up her glistening chest. The hotness of his breath engulfed her sex and before she could recognise the quickening across her core she climaxed around his brawny fingers.

Her juices trickled from her before Oliver lapped his tongue around her entrance. Her spend was sweet, sprinkled with just a touch of salt and it coated his fingers as he slipped them out of her trembling body.

Instinctively Felicity lay back and Oliver shed the last of his clothing. He stood at the foot of the bed, admiring the sheen of sweat that veiled her body as she writhed with the last throes of her climax.

She beckoned him with hungry eyes and, climbing on the bed, his body shadowed hers. Her fingertips brushed down his sculptured chest before they reached the short curls at the base of his erect cock.

Curiously she traced a finger down his translucent skin of his shaft and over the ridge, before she gathered drops of arousal from his slit.

“Did I,” she paused to chew her lip nervously, “did I make it,” failing to find the words, Felicity gripped his rigid cock and pumped it.  
“Did you make it hard?” he asked with a puckish smile.  
She blushed at the absurdity of her wondering, but nodded sheepishly all the same.

“From the moment you stepped out of the carriage you have had that effect,” he purred.  
He leaned down and kissed the rosy threads of her throat, nipping his teeth faintly into the pulse point as he let her guide his cock between her damp folds, wetting it.

As she tented her knees Oliver nudged his tip inside her to the ridge. The feeling was so much more swelling to Felicity than his fingers had been and, sensing her discomfort, Oliver leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose before dropping to her lips.

As their kiss deepened and her tongue settled into his mouth, Oliver eased himself a little deeper inside her and her discomfort soon morphed into pleasure as she arched into him.

Felicity could taste the remnants of herself on him when her tongue twisted around his; but with his cock stilled half inside her Oliver severed the kiss.  
“Am I to your liking?” she asked curiously as her nails grazed through his beard.  
“Very much so Felicity, but I'm afraid going any deeper may cause you pain.”  
She nodded, her eyes focused on his. “And yet I know I would feel only pleasure from you. So a moment of pain would be worth it.”

She dragged her thumb across his lips. “Kiss me as you go, so that my lips drown in pleasure and I barely feel this pain.”  
As she asked, they kissed bruising deep to catch her gasp as he thrust himself forward until his throbbing cock was completely seated inside her.

He gave her time to adjust to the swelling before they moved together in a slow and considered wave that built over time. Before too long the pace had quickened and the room filled with their panted cries while the taste of saltiness tinged the air.

With their foreheads together and their hot breaths melding, Felicity held onto her lover with splayed hands across his back, and as he plunged deeper and faster her nails embedded into his skin and his name clung to her lips.

She tilted her hips upwards and brought her knees to her chest in the final dizzying heights of her climax as her clenching walls strangled his cock.

Her second orgasm felt like explosion through her core and drenched him in a silky blanket of warmth, while his jolted, chasing thrusts filled the room with salaciously-wet sounds.

Beads of sweat drip from his forehead as the backs of his thighs tightened until he sat at the very edge of his release. He was ready to withdraw when Felicity tangled her legs around his waist and silently begged him to stay.  
Oliver bucked into her, once, twice, a third time; relishing every twitch her body gave him, until he came in shuddering ribbons of release. As he slowed, the last waves of her orgasm milked his cock until he had emptied his seed inside her.

They fell apart, thoroughly sated and drenched in sweat and their sticky, mutual release. She turned towards him and Oliver wordlessly brushed back tendrils of hair glued to her face before he held her tight against his chest and his arms fully enveloped her. Nothing more needed to be said, at least not for the moment.

Because that moment belonged to them, and them alone.

**•| the "end" |•**

**Author note:**

**So right now you are probably like "did Felice just end it there, like that?"**

**And I'm all, "why yes, I did."**

**Then you ask how could I? And I smirk.**

**So, is this actually the end? **

**[Twitter announcement ](https://twitter.com/Someonesaidcake/status/1178935799070375936?s=19) || [Tumblr announcement](https://someonesaidcake.tumblr.com/post/188060623630/hi-guys-firstly-i-feel-like-im-about-to-let-a)**

**Author's Note:**

> The reader/writer relationship is a symbiotic one, so please let me know what you think xox
> 
> Twitter / Tumblr @someonesaidcake


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